HostGator is one of the leading global providers of web hosting services. It was founded by Brent Oxley in his college days (2002). Today it is one of largest web hosting providers and has been rated best by many.
People who venture into online careers often ask me about which web hosting service they should opt for. It is a very general question. You see, different hosting providers can provide you with different packages. It is up to you to research and decide that what suits you best. Also Check out here best web hosting services.
Is HostGator really that good as it seems?
There is certainly no doubt in my mind that HostGator is a very feature rich site with awesome flexibility. Some key star attractions are:
- Unlimited Services Packages
- Unlimited Subdomains
- Robust Hosting
- Awesome value for money
What do the different HostGator hosting plans have to offer?
There are three different hosting packages to choose from as you can see in the picture. You can choose what suits you best according to the scale and need of your website or blog. Some common offerings are:
- International Domains
- IP addresses
- Email IDs
- SSL certificates
- Toll-free number ( With Business Plan)
The impressive part is that upgrading to another plan is completely free. This means that there will be no surprise costs when you up the scales of operations of your website.
What this does is gives you leverage over the HostGator plans
You can always start with the basic plan and then see that if you need and require an upgrade. This provides you with all the information you need beforehand. You can then allocate your budget accordingly. This saves a lot of money in terms of failed hosting experiments!
ATTENTION: Hostgator Coupon CodesDoes HostGator land on the expectations? Well, Mostly Yes!
Features, features and more features.... HostGator is full of them! You have the site builder which is included in purchase. You can have shopping carts for ecommerce. There are one click installs of cool apps. There are awesome emails features like:
- Unlimited POP3 accounts
- Email aliases
- Autoresponders
- Mailing Lists
- Mail Forwarding and more
Ok Features are all good but what about security?
HostGator has Spam Assassin in all its packages. This means complete spam protection and no unwanted junk in your inbox!
Other Attractions!
As a past user of HostGator services I have to come out and say that it gives you 99% uptime!
It is certified as a green web host. The operations at the offices are powered mostly by wind energy. This statistically means that for every unit of electricity it uses, HostGator restores 1.3 units of non-renewable energy! That's cool and I think should be taken into consideration.
A very Reliable ServerThe business plans with loads of features come to you at price of $12.95 a month. I have to say that's cheap! The features which HostGator provides with its plans make the entire package a very pocket friendly proposition.
Eco-friendly: Giving Something BackAs said earlier there is no upgradation cost with HostGator. This is good news for beginners as it allows them to do their thing and worry about expansion later. They also have other plans like reseller hosting and VPS which come in handy when you are increasing your scale of operations.
Conclusion: HostGator is cool! Awesome option for beginners
.The first attraction is the feature set. You have 2 major attractions here:
Growing is easy- Cron Jobs: Using this, you can schedule some tasks to take place automatically. This includes email downloading etc.
- Error pages: Convenient and allow advanced webmasters to take control of their website.
HostGator is easy to use, though it does require you to spend time learning all the technical aspects. It will likely take you a few minutes to learn how to navigate its interface.
The one thing they have to work on is their support. It is definitely better than the likes of GoDaddy but there is still room for improvement.
You can go through their long list of FAQs and forums for your doubts. You can even subscribe to their numerous tutorial videos. The company can be contacted via email, live chat and toll-free numbers.
Now this is where the glitches come in. The response times are slow and sometimes you can be in for an hour long wait to get in touch with their representatives.
The quality has taken a further downturn HostGator was acquired by EIG which owns other major hosting services around the globe. The support staff is extremely knowledgeable. There is no doubt about that but it is very difficult to get in touch with them.
Sometimes it may take you 20 minutes and sometimes 30. I once waited an hour to get in touch with anyone of them. This is not acceptable. Other Hosting providers like Bluehost provide far better response times.
Being such an awesome service provider I think the HostGator team should work towards fixing this issue and approach it with a more consumer-focussed approach. Even the live chat feature nowadays has tedious response times compared to other services. If this kind of attitude continues, HostGator will suffer in more than one ways!
Even though there might be this slight glitch, all else is well with HostGator. It has a long list of accolades to its name too as you can see here:
HostGator has features that can cater well to both beginners and experienced professionals.
The service would benefit quicker support response times from customer support and a robust customer support network!
Special : Use our own special coupon code "BLOGGERSIDEAS25″ to get 25% off on total bill.Hostgator Uptime Reports
Hostgator testimonials
Credits:http://www.whoishostingthis.com/hosting-reviews/hostgator/
Hostgator Review by Leandro Thomas, Nomad Destination
I have been using Hostgator for just over 5 years and have been happy with them all in all. I came across them, since many other bloggers I follow use Hostgator also and recommended them. Currently I host 10 sites on a shared plan (baby). When accessing my sites they always respond well speed wise, so no complaints there.
Uptime
Their 99.9% uptime guarantee has been upheld as far as I can see - so far my site was only down 1 time for 1 hour, so it was quickly rectified. In the time it was down I received an email explaining what had happened, so I was happy with the communication.
Support
I have often heard bad things about Hostgator's support provision. So far I have only needed to use them 4 times, so it may be harder to judge than people who have used them more often. Nonetheless, each time they responded relatively quickly and managed to resolve my issues.
One of my support requests was a billing enquiry to change my billing cycle, which they changed no problems. This was taken care of within 12 hours. 2 of them were questions about the control panel as I didn't know how to find particular items in it - again, simple and clear explanations which were responded to within about 5 hours. The last was an account migration, which worked out well. To this they got back to me within 12 hours. I am not aware of what their SLA's are for response times, but for what my issues were, it felt satisfactory.
I have to say that besides the downtime I haven't had any major issues, such as being hacked for example. This means that I haven't been able to "stress test" their support so to speak.
Who should use Hostgator?
As entry level plans are affordable and relatively simple to setup - it is quick to get going with your website. For this reason I think that Hostgator is suitable for people just starting out - especially beginner bloggers looking for that first WordPress setup.
A bit further down the line, with VPS or dedicated servers I think other hosts are more suitable as they specialise more than Hostgator do. A blogger for example, relatively far along in their blogging journey would be better off with other services, offering specialised WordPress hosting. This is the only reason I would give them 4 stars instead of 5.
Leandro Thomas, founder of Nomad Destination; Twitter @LeandroBThomas.
Conclusion: Should You Go With Hostgator?
HostGator Reivew, it definitely gives value for money and its hosting packages deliver unlimited hosting capabilities. I would specially recommend it to any beginner! Check best web hosting companies reviews here.
